Introducing Our New Website and Web-player (Patreon)

Hey guys, 

I am very excited to announce we finally have our own website at altosandherdone.com! Not only that but you can play the full version of the game there entirely on your web browser. Meaning we finally have a decent alternative to the highly compressed Android version, plus people can now play on iOS for the very first time.

The website and web-player was built and is being managed by an enterprising web developer named Hyliax. I am very happy to be an early adopter of his new Renpy webplayer platform and I wish him every success with his new business venture. To any other developers reading this: I strongly recommend his services.

The web-player loads assets as needed, so there’s no need to download the full game to play. Save files are stored in the cloud, plus you can download a backup of your save directly to your device as well as uploading an existing save. You can log into the website using either your Patreon, Subscribestar or Discord Account. After logging in you will be able to access the latest patron/subscriber only versions (when the next one comes out). You can also find a link to download the latest public version from our Itch page.

The website provides a new home for the game’s walk-through (although it is also still available from the old MediaFire location). At some point we are thinking about creating a wiki, but for now it’s still a PDF document. We also have a gallery feature which hosts our substantial library of custom art. I went through and tagged all the images so they can be sorted by character and theme. Some of the albums are public but most of the images are only accessible by patrons in the Head of Department tier. I am hoping to find time to add some more custom sets to the gallery soon. Plus I plan to use the gallery as a home for future image previews.

One important thing to note; the website is not currently available in regions with age verification laws, including the UK, France and some US states. These laws are prohibitively expensive to comply with for small businesses like mine. If an affordable and safe age verification option becomes available we will look at implementing it. To be clear, the public version of the game will still be available to download from Itch, and I will still release download links for early access versions as before. So even if you are affected by a geoblock you will still have the same access to the game.

Legally, I shouldn’t advise you on how to get around geoblocks, even though it is simple to do. Sadly, this oppressive censorship/pearl-clutching bullshittery has had the entirely predictable consequence of making the internet less safe, with people far more vulnerable to scams and bad actors. So, always be very careful who you hand your personal information over to. Look to reputable companies like Nord or Proton for safer browsing.

Anyway, I hope the new web-player enables lots of new people to discover and enjoy the game, and that people enjoy perusing the gallery. In honour of the occasion, Herdone designed a new logo for us and I updated our Patreon page with a new banner which you can see above. It’s back to work on the game now though. I’ll be posting my next development update later this month.

Altos